The procedure was planned for Tehran at midday on Saturday in the presence of Ameneh Bahrami, the young woman he attacked and blinded, under a sentence called qesas (retribution in kind) imposed by a court in 2009.
She had demanded that the blinding be carried out after her university classmate Majid Movahedi threw a bucket of acid over her when she spurned his repeated offers of marriage. The punishment had been due to be carried out at the judiciary hospital in Tehran, under the supervision of a doctor and with representatives of the coroners’ office and the prosecution present.
Miss Bahrami, who now lives in Spain, was 24 when she first met Mr Movahedi in Iran.
